What happened to the Christian culture which formerly described mainstream America? Social commentators and pastors agree that we live in a post-Christian culture. But what caused the soil of American culture to stop sprouting Christian influence and proliferate with weeds which have overgrown American religious and cultural heritage?
Like sowing good seed and brambles at the same time, a number of events contributed to a slow directional shift of American culture. One of the first, (which I personally believe is the most significant) was the 1963 Supreme Court’s decision banning prayer from public schools. Within a few years, a quagmired war, an explosion of drug use, and a disconnected subculture emerged on the American home front. Families fragmented under the strain, and the cultural shift was increased by liberalized divorce policies and inner city race riots which sprouted like the biblical “tares among the wheat.” More than temporary events, these forces squeezed American culture like Playdoh through a Fun Factory. By the turn of the century, we weren’t too sure how we got here, but we knew “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”
I’m not one who laments the loss of 1950′s style, Norman Rockwell Americana. Yet I see a common thread through these events which catalyzed a loss of Christian influence more than any other single issue. Conflict and broken relationships led irresistibly into personal isolation. During the past 4 decades, social conflict has repeatedly pitted one group, class, race or age of people against another. As a result, our collective focus shifted. We no longer believe in working together for the well being of the community out of a principle of love and duty which was built from a Christian heritage. We are now a people pursuing and defending self in order to get what we have a right to be, do or have.
Awash on the pain created from evolving narcissism, we continued to pursue self in order to protect ourselves from more pain. I can’t be hurt by you if I push you away before you take from me. The cycle repeats, becoming more entrenched in each generation’s collective psyche. Isolation is no longer foreign. It has become our homeland, our common experience.
As a writer, this social detachment presents an incredible opportunity to paint another picture. The information and web content created each year is growing exponentially. Maybe it’s time for word-savvy Christians to wade into the fray, and present God’s alternative. While our culture is screaming against anything that looks or feels Christian, we are looking for the worth that God has created and offers to every man.
So how do we connect our words with the tempestuous cultural storm raging around us? Here are a few ideas:
- Don’t preach when you write. Make your words and characters personal and real. Use first person, I & Me when talking about spiritual issues rather than you, your or they.
- Make your characters real. I don’t enjoy plastic people that always have the right answer, and never appear to have a bad day. John Maxwell says “When you talk about your successes, you impress people, when you share your struggles, you inspire them.”
- Point your reader to the One who has the solutions, not to canned answers.
- Create characters that wrestle with finding a real Answer to the questions and problems in their lives, rather than ones who have it all figured out.
As a writer who is a Christian, I am called to influence the world toward Christ. I am salt and light, a preservative that defends against cultural rot. To fulfill this call, like Christ I must be counter-cultural. But if I am detached and can’t relate to it, my words will be as empty as churches that refuse to change their traditions to meet the needs of their neighbors.
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